Interview with Gwendolyn and Lucy Giles | By Mark Hassenfratz
Dog Party are a Sacramento indie rock duo comprised of the Giles sisters, Gwendolyn and Lucy. Their sound has been compared to that of Ramones, The White Stripes, and The Go-Go’s and combines cheeky pop lyrics with the punk attitude of Buzzcocks. Dog Party opened for Green Day on their Revolution Radio tour in 2016, and in 2018, the band self-released their sixth record, Hit & Run, via their own Brat Mag + Music, in conjunction with Burger Records.
Starting July 5, they’ll hit the road with Reel Big Fish and The Aquabats!, then tour with Bad Cop / Bad Cop and Pity Party until early August, and finally, close out the month alongside CJ Ramone. Tickets are available here.
Below, the Giles take a moment to share about their sibling rivalry—or lack thereof—Dog Party’s new album, and music documentaries.
How long have you been playing music together?
Gwendolyn Giles: We’ve been playing music together for just about 12 years.
Do you ever find that there’s any sibling rivalry between you?
GG: Not really. We get along fairly well compared to other siblings.
Is it easier playing in a band with someone you grew up with?
GG: Definitely. There’s a lot of times—really, anytime that we’re playing together—where we’re kind of in sync with one another. It makes playing a lot easier, I think. It’s pretty crazy—there’s songs that Lucy might show me a cover [of] that I’ve never seen before, and if she’s playing it, I can hop in with harmonies just by looking at her, even though I am not aware of the words at all.
What are some of the unique challenges that come with having a band with only two people? What are some of the mountains you have to climb?
Lucy Giles: We’re just two people, so having the music sound full is definitely something that has to have a lot of thought put into it. Gwennie actually runs her guitar [through] two amps at the same time. She plays out of a Fender Bassman and a Bandmaster. They’re more vintage, like from the ’60s. One is distorted by a Death By Audio Fuzz War [pedal], and the other is one is a cleaner, brighter sound, and so, the two round it off in a great, full-body sound.
GG: I’m able to do this by an A/B switch pedal, and so, some of my pedals on my pedal board go into one amp and others go to the different one. It creates a difference between the two amps for sure.
LG: Sometimes people hear us playing at a venue and they’ll come closer to take a look at us and see what’s up, and afterwards, they’ll come up to us like, “Oh my gosh, like, we had no idea that it was just two people. It sounded like there was more.” I think that the two different amps with two different tones has a lot to do with it.
That makes me think of your sound in general; you’ve described it as rock fused with some pop elements and some punk elements. Do you find that having the two different amps helps you figure out how to compose a song and what elements you’re trying to put into, like, a rock ’n’ roll song?
GG: The amp configuration came later. I’ve been doing it for just a little over a year now. We’ve been trying out various combinations and testing it. There’s three variables in it: guitar, pedals, and amps.
LG: Big trial and error. Having this dual amp combo, it gives us the opportunity to be a little bit more versatile than other two-pieces could potentially be, because there’s a section of our set where Gwennie will just play out of one amp.
GG: Usually, one of them plays louder than the other one, and for one or two songs, I’ll switch it so that the quieter one becomes the loud one. That way, we’re able to play a couple ballads on Hit & Run—which, brighter tones, full chords, you’re able hear now. Being able to do that through amps is pretty cool.
So, you’re working on new material. What can you share about that new stuff?
LG: The new stuff is definitely more developed. It’s interesting—we started so young, we started playing when we were 8 and 10, and we recorded our first record when we were, like, 11 and 13. So, basically, if you look at our discography, you can watch and listen to us growing up, which is pretty cool. Like with Hit & Run, our last record, that record was pretty different from our previous releases, with the subject matter being more mature, like about romance and heartbreak. With this next record, it’s turned up another level.
Are you dealing with similar themes as you did on Hit & Run?
LG: Yeah, I would say so. [Laughs] I’m really interested in songwriting and reporting, and I like to listen to music from the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s and analyze, very thoroughly, exactly what they’re doing. I didn’t take songwriting as seriously, but now, I’m interested in looking at it through a new lens and I do consider myself to be a writer. I write everywhere I go. I think there’s a whole new level of maturity and seriousness.
GG: Part of it is the progression over time. In the past few years especially, we have watched a lot of really informative music documentaries that we’ve learned [from], as well as broadening our music taste, which also has affected our songwriting. We’ve been diving further back in time. Mostly, we started listening to current artists and then listening to their influences and keep on traveling back in time to find the root.
LG: I definitely noticed, like, amongst my peers who only listen to contemporary music, you can only get so far. The contemporaries listened to the people of the past, and they listened to the people of the past. So, you’re only viewing music through a lens that’s, like, I don’t know, 40 times removed or something.
Yeah, you need to you need to know where you came from.
LG: Exactly. It’s just really cool. I’ve known people who just listen to the same record their whole entire life—like, they have three records that [they] cycle through. How are you supposed to grow as an artist and expand?
What music documentaries and what bands have you been listening to as you’re working on this new stuff?
LG: Some of the documentaries that made me take a step back and be like, “Whoa,” are definitely the Tom Petty one, [“Runnin’ Down a Dream”]—that one is probably the coolest music documentary ever. Also, the Carter Family, “The Winding Stream,” is really really cool, because, I mean, that literally shows you how songwriting basically started in contemporary America, like, back then and how it developed. And “Muscle Shoals” was definitely a wild one, really explorative on recording. “The Wrecking Crew” was also really awesome. It’s just taking a look back, and hearing really wise artists, as well our idols, speaking about music is definitely helpful.
So, this summer, you are going on three tours with three different bands. That’s really ambitious.
LG: We’re excited.
Is there any reason you’re touring so extensively over such a short period of time?
GG: We’ve always been students as well as musicians, so when we started, it was elementary school. I just finished up college at Cal Poly in San Francisco. With school schedules, we get summers off, and so, we use that time primarily to tour, ever since about middle school during every single summer.
LG: Every opportunity.
GG: We take every school break opportunity—winter break, spring break. As of recently, we have a booking agent, so it’s easier to put the summer together and making those connections for all three tours is a lot easier.
You mentioned you just graduated. Is music the end-goal for you or are you trying to pursue a career in what you studied?
GG: I mean, I’ve been playing music now for half my life. It’ll always be a huge part. It’s been really fun as well, and we just keep on seeing it progress, so I just want to keep on pushing it.
LG: She also studies stuff that she uses for the band.
Like what?
GG: I majored in communications with a concentration in web and digital media. It’s a broad major. Some of my courses were business-oriented, marketing and sales classes, to quality management, HR, that sort of thing. Some of them were more with various printing processes and just studying design and how to do that the best way that you can. So, I think that’s very helpful for album artwork, as well as digital advertisement, and then also working on a website, like HTML, CSS. Very helpful. I set up the Dog Party website.
What do you think is the most important lesson you’ve learned from playing music for as long as you have?
GG: Early on, I would say the importance of practicing, and then, as far as performing and touring, I would say one of the important things is vocal warmups. We only started doing that since the Green Day tour in 2016. We warm up for 30 minutes to an hour by playing an acoustic guitar in our van or dressing room and singing songs with lots of harmonies—typically oldies.
You have said that you like carrying the torch for women in rock ’n’ roll and, you know, showing girls that they can be rockers too. So, you must be really excited to be touring with Bad Cop / Bad Cop.
LG: Yeah, it was really cool—we did a couple one-off shows with them a while back, and that was the first time we had met them, and we just, like, instantly became friends. And now, we’re going on tour!
I know you said that you kind of harken back to old-school stuff to learn your craft, but what what else happening in the scene right now is really exciting for you?
GG: Definitely our friends in SWMRS; everything they do is very inspiring and cool, and watching them progress has been a real treat. The Regrettes as well. Right now, people are kind of whispering about a resurgence of rock ’n’ roll, and I am 100 percent for that. [Laughs]
I was actually interested to talk to you about that, because a lot of people have said that since most kids these days don’t listen to rock ’n’ roll music, some people think that’s good for rock ’n’ roll, because it kind of forces it to fight a little harder.
LG: That’s interesting; I could see that. Growing up, I went to high school and I was one of the only people who listened to rock ’n’ roll music. I was a punk rocker in high school; I wore my leather jacket to school. I felt like I was in some kind of rock ’n’ roll gang, you know? [Laughs]
Yeah, you had to wear your colors.
LG: Yeah, exactly. People weren’t against me, but I didn’t fit into their little mold. It is interesting, though, because after I graduated in 2016, that was when music festivals kind of really got big. My peers that I went to high school with, they’re really into the festivals now; they’re going really out of their way to [go to] festivals now. [Back] then, you know, they wouldn’t go to a show, but I’m seeing more and more of them starting to go to shows now. These people are getting into what I’ve been doing ever since I was in elementary school.
GG: I’ve also started to notice people I went to college with making road trips from campus to Santa Barbara or as far as L.A. or up to San Francisco in the north just to go concerts, which definitely shows dedication.
LG: I think that the internet is, like, very niche-y, and it allows for things that aren’t as mainstream to gain popularity pretty rapidly. So, you do see people going out of their way to see things that aren’t screaming in the mainstream; they’re fringey, so that’s awesome.
GG: And I think rock ’n’ roll will come back, because the sound of it, the quality about it, is irreplaceable. It’s probably the best sound ever. There’s been such a long period of time where acoustic electric guitars have kind of been absent from mainstream music that when people hear it, they’re gonna be like, “What is that?” That is really cool still.
